A Bit of A Long Answer
by TheIronDragon
Summary: Najia asked them if they were a thing, and frankly? That's a bit of a long answer... I hopped on that Thasmin wagon and I'm enjoying the crazy ride! Thirteen x Yasmin Khan


**HELLO! Okay so I know I should be working on Fire and Iron but doctor who started and I'm in love with this ship... So fire and Iron is coming but for now, enjoy!**

The doctor could feel it happening, and she didn't know if she liked it. Her regenerations recently had been dashing men, and she had flattered herself then, that her young companions could and would like him on the outside.

Being older had definitely given her a better outlook, or having a companion that wouldn't like any of the men she had been because she didn't do men. Or the eyebrows. Whatever it had been, her previous regeneration had made her understand how much humans liked the outside better than the 2000 year old time lord she actually was.

Subconsciously, probably any ways, she had become a woman, because it was likely her companions would see her as a confidant and not a potential romantic partner.

Ryan didn't seem interested, and that had been a breath of fresh air—he was funny and kind and it was good to not be on guard about territorial men in her TARDIS. Graham was much older, he knew life and he was deeply in love with Grace, even if she was gone, and the doctor could so sympathize with the grief.

Yasmin is where she ran into a boulder sized problem. She was spunky and self assured, confident and funny and all the things the doctor loved, frankly all the things her previous selves had loved in the woman who traveled with him. But the likelihood of finding two women who liked women and wanted to see the universe seemed so unlikely. Of course she didn't have an issue if Yasmin was gay, or bi, or whatever humans were using to label their love these days. The problem was that she could see it, in the shine in her eyes and her eager disposition, and she didn't know how to feel about it.

Was she even allowed? The idea was that change was good, and being a woman would give her a whole new set of issues. But a spunky female companion developing feelings for her female reincarnation. How in the name of Gallifrey was she supposed to deal with that?

She had been married, before, to River. And being a woman now didn't mean she felt any less affection for the blonde bombshell that had made her life so deeply discombobulated.

Her other selves had loved women in their own right, and she remembered Clara fondly, when she was on her 11th self, or 12th, it had been hard to keep track of. She remembered her as the beautiful impossible girl that had loved him. She remembered as her grouchier latest incarnation, and the school teacher that had been like getting his granddaughter back.

She remembered Rose, brave, brash, strong Rose. Rose who had broken through the barriers of the dimensions to see him, the broken man who had believed too deeply in his own legend. And she had gotten her happy ending with him, in another universe, as a human.

So when Yaz' mum asked if they were seeing each other, she didn't hesitate and act the fool because she didn't know—she wasn't sure. It was a bit of a long answer because she didn't know, was she allowed? Was she trapped in the basic gender constructs that humans had clawed onto?

The people of Gallifrey were past that, they didn't dwell on whom one loved, because that person could change, outwardly, at any moment. It mattered that you loved who they were on the inside. Their way to see the universe, their sense of wonder, what beverage they would reach for in the mornings. If relationships for her people were so fickle, they wouldn't outlast a regeneration. Looking for a change of pace might mean losing the person you loved, and that could only restrict your potential.

Age was a thing, living longer was always an issue, but that would be true if she were a handsome young man, an old cranky Scotsman, or a socially awkward charming woman. What mattered was what was expected, or well… what she expected of herself? Who was going to stop her doing whatever she wanted to do?

Or maybe she was imagining things? Maybe Yaz was just friendly, she had seemed close to Ryan, and maybe the doctor was projecting her emotions onto that young woman, and her would be relationship. But why would her mother have asked? She would have asked if she were a man, but did those rules apply now? Hopefully she wouldn't get slapped a new one like Jackie Tyler had… the days when she didn't do families.

-oOoOo-

Yaz wanted to kill her mother. She wanted to test how far she had taken her comradeship with her superior officers at the station, who would help her cover up the murder. She wanted to go back in time (which not ironically enough was a thing she could do, and not just say, now!) and stop her mother from asking stupid questions.

To be fair to her mother, the question isn't stupid. And she had grown tired of people asking if she and Ryan were an item. Her own sister had opened her conversation with that, and it was on the brink of driving her insane. Nothing against Ryan of course, it just seemed annoying that of the three people in the TARDIS, her only option was Ryan.

So when her mother had badgered the doctor down, and asked if they were a thing, Yaz felt the skies open up for her. Incidentally she had also felt as if every piece of food she had ever consumed was trying to climb its way out of her throat. They were in a hotel full of gigantic spiders out to get them, and the thing she was most afraid of in the moment was the doctor's answer to that question.

Now, she had thought about it. Her family wasn't shocked the day she came out as bisexual to them. They had suspected for a long time that some of her school mates were more than "mates". Her father used it as an opportunity to make bad jokes, her sister used it as a teasing opportunity that with double the amount of people she still had no relationships. Her mom was very nonchalant that her career came before any man or woman. So that didn't worry her at all, if it ever even had.

What she had thought about was the doctor. Socially awkward, rambling here and there about words she understood separately, but together in her sentences, they made no sense. When they had first met she had fallen from God knows where, covered in gunk and soot, dressed head to toe in some old man get up. But she had taken control of the situation, and gotten herself into ridiculous circumstances, faced down a terrifying alien monster and saved the day. Sure she got them sucked into the vacuum of space not a few days later, but they had gotten out of that. She was in control, and while not calm or collected she had been the natural lead they followed.

The doctor also carried around this sense of right that hit Yasmin in the right spot. When they had found themselves in Montgomery, Alabama, where Ryan and her were hit with racial slurs left and right, she could see it took everything in the doctor's power to not smack all the racists down. When they were talked down at the bar, Yasmin could see that one wrong move and the doctor would snap, that held in check commanding power made the hairs in the back of her neck stand on end.

It wasn't all that intense though. They had, or at least she had, caught glimpses of the doctor's innately softer nature. Her distraught realization that they had to let an injustice happen to Rosa Parks to save the future, Yaz could almost feel the sorrow. How many things had she seen, or she had to stand by, because a greater good came from not acting. The doctor was a woman who wanted to fix the universe, and to realize she had to fail one to help many was a heartbreaking betrayal to her nature.

With her short haircut and frazzled posture, her gray coat and incredible time machine that fit in a police box, her sense of right and her commanding power that just made you want to follow her, well you couldn't blame one Yasmin Khan for swooning.

So when the doctor said "I don't think so, are we?" Yaz could hear the sound of her heart flying out of her chest. And she had answered the truth, they were just friends. She had wanted to say not yet. Because it might have been her gaydar as her friends were fond of putting it, or her "I-wish-you-were-gay-dar" like her sister would say, but there was no way in God's green earth that this woman was straight. She was short of wearing rainbow suspenders for crying out loud! Yaz could almost bet if she slapped a bowtie on her she wouldn't need a gaydar.

She had a spaceship, and had traveled to so many places, seen so many things, how could she be straight? Maybe the people from her planet, because let's be realistic she wasn't from earth, didn't have a concept of Gay, straight or bi. Maybe would just connect with her on a deeper level?

And the doctor has asked. She hadn't outright thrown the idea out of the window, or back at her and her mum. She had asked Yaz she wasn't sure, and maybe seeing each other didn't mean the same thing to her that she did to regular people, but she had asked if they were, and that had to mean something.

Yaz had a lot of things to think about, beginning with the doctor and the TARDIS, and all the serious implications that came from there. For now though, she had to worry about the big ass spiders.

-oOoOo-

Hearing the TARDIS door swing open had sent the doctors hearts hammering. Her three new friends all came in, Ryan, Graham and Yasmin closing them out. It said something good, that they had come to say goodbye.

"a proper goodbye this time?"

"about that…"

And the doctor could sympathize with them. Ryan had the potential to be so much more than the warehouse he was working in, he could grow to be so much. And she could understand grief, better than they probably thought. She had seen so many leave, some to happy lives, some not so much, and she had let time heal the wounds, and she could understand Graham. Yasmin though, she wanted to come home, and the doctor couldn't help think she was staying because the others were.

"Yaz? I thought you wanted to come home" a small smile graced Yasmin's caramel skin, yeah she had, but she hadn't wanted to stay permanently. She had a life, and a career, and so many things going for her. But she had also seen the universe, and she had seen history, and how much more she could be.

"I know. I love them, my family, but they also drive me completely insane" the doctor scoffed, and Yasmin's smile could only grow. "I want more" she tightened her fist next to her thigh, whatever it took to keep her from reaching out "more of the universe" here goes nothing "more of you" The doctor shot her a small smile, maybe she knew? "you're like the best person I ever met"

The doctor gulped, she hoped not too loudly. Maybe she didn't imagine Yaz' actions?.

"be sure" she gave them one last out. They would be in peril, she wasn't always in control of what happened with the TARDIS, and they might get hurt, they would never be the same Sheffield people when they came back. The universe tended to do that to you.

Yasmin was the first to crack, with a wide smile she said sure, and the doctor was almost sure she wasn't answering the question she had asked out loud, as much as she was answering her unspoken doubt. Sure she was allowed to take a chance. If her other selves had, despite knowing how it would end, she could too.

-oOoOo-

She had taken them to a vacation planet not far from earth, a proper day off to make up for the whole big spider thing. It seemed a better welcome to what their new crazy life was going to be. And it helped her settle her brain a bit, though Yasmin dragging her here and there by the hand, sometimes not letting go for a while, didn't help. When they got back her new friends got to pick rooms, more or less randomly and, frankly whatever showed up first. She hadn't been in the TARDIS properly since it had imploded after her regeneration, and the rooms had a knack of never quite being where you'd want them. Case in point when her swimming pool used to be in the library.

Like all the TARDIS' former tenants, they had all asked if she had a room, she left them hanging on that one. Sleep wasn't something she needed as desperately, frankly why one would have a whole room made for just sleeping in baffled her. One could do so much more with a room. Truth is she did, have a room that was. Of sorts. A small cubby under the console, where she would sit and tinker with the aging TARDIS' mechanisms, save all her most precious memories in a trunk. They wouldn't understand it, of course, but she could truthfully tell them she did, if the topic ever came up again.

That's where Yaz found her, about to hop down the trap door the TARDIS had made for her. A bag of cream custards in one hand, a pair of welding goggles on her head, her coat over her shoulder and her sonic screwdriver in the other hand.

"off to wreck something?" Yaz crossed her arms over her chest, not trusting her hands very much at the time.

"you could say so" the doctor tilted her head and smiled, and her hair followed suit. It would take a while to get used to that, and she would do well remembering that it could get in the way, or catch on fire, or both "found your room okay?"

"the hammock is definitely an experience, but I think I'll like it" the TARDIS hummed softly next to her, and it was a good thing Yasmin couldn't understand it, because it liked making fun of the doctors' choice of beds for her companions "I wanted to—"

"So I was wondering"

The two laughed nervously, and both felt kind of foolish. The doctor because she was a 2000 year old time lord from Gallifrey for Pete's sakes, she could talk to a human. Yaz because she was a self assured confident woman, this couldn't be harder than the police academy, or dealing with every issue that had ever come up in her life. But there they were, at a stalemate.

"you first" the doctor tilted her head towards the sort of couch thing the TARDIS had spawned up, and Yasmin smiled at the fact that it had a tint of purple as she remembered the doctor rambling about furniture in her home earlier.

"so, I wanted to apologize, about my mum" the doctor extended the bag of custard creams to her, and Yaz couldn't help the smile that came over her face "she is a bit protective of me"

"one could wonder why, you can take great care of yourself" was that flirty? "I mean—"

"I get what you mean. I can, but she's still my mum, and they always worry"

"no I understand" she raised her hand to scratch the back of her head, oddly with the sonic in the way "I just choose to be flattered she thought you and me were a thing" the blush on the time lord rose from her neck to the top of her eats when she realized what she had just admitted "not that we are or anything I just—"

Yasmin took a mental step back to see the full picture. The flustered blonde in front of her, goggles on her head, hair slightly askew because of all the nervous fidgeting, she knew the doctor had effectively ruined other women for her. And frankly there was no time like the present.

The ramblings of the poor Gallifreyan were cut short when Yaz reached for her hand. It wasn't the grand dramatic gesture Yasmin had wanted to do, but frankly she was afraid the doctors' head might explode if she kissed her with no regards.

"it's okay to breathe you know"

"is it?" the blonde expelled the breath she had been holding, letting herself enjoy the heat coming off the hand of the younger woman "Yaz? What are you doing"

"this is restraint, believe me"

"I'm not human you know. I never age, and I've lived hundreds of years" this reincarnation seemed to like full disclosure. The less you hide the less you worry, though here it might drive her blood pressure through the roof.

"I figured"

"I also change. I mean. When we met, I didn't know what I looked like, or that I even was a woman" Yasmin used her hand to encourage the doctor to come out with everything, she had time "I've been older than you're probably comfortable with, and probably about as young as I look now. And definitely mandlier… Well" she thought back to her 11th self, more bouncy and a little touched in the head "more than right now that is"

"good thing you being a man or a woman doesn't bother me" the doctor almost punched the air in celebration, she had read the situation correctly, more or less "and that you can't object on principle"

"I can't wh—" the younger woman snuck her hand behind the doctor's neck, using it to pull her closer. By the time their lips met both her hands were tangled in her blonde hair. Eyes closed and hands staying put on the couch, the doctor couldn't tell anyone at the time what the difference was. Love is love the humans said, and at no time was that more obvious than that kiss, woman or man or whatever, that's not what really mattered.

Yaz would swear to her dying day that a choir of angels was singing in the background. It might have been the TARDIS humming along as they drifted through space, or her own mind playing music, whatever it was though she would probably remember it forever.

Eventually she let the older woman go, though not too far. Hands on her face, forehead against hers, breath mingling.

"any objections?"

A high pitch sound came out of the doctor, one she would swear Yaz to secrecy about, and the young woman could do nothing but laugh about it.

"can I take that as a no then?"

"Yaz…"

Yasmin tilted her head down to press another kiss on the time lord's lips, effectively shushing her. "I said I wanted more and I meant it. More of the universe, and definitely more of you".

"you'd be surprised how many times those two mix up"

"I'm all for it" Yasmin sat back, taking the doctor's soft hands in hers. She had expected them to be rough and calloused.

The doctor smiled, knowing what she was thinking. Frankly she was surprised at the things that would change when she did "regeneration. Brand new body"

"Good, then there is more about you to know about" Yaz smiled one last time before standing, the doctor springing up like the seat burned, her coat falling on the floor and the welding goggles making the trip from the top of her head to hanging around her neck.

"Did I do something? Her brain was still fuzzy, and it was hard to take queues from what humans often did so subtly. If she was being honest, 2000 plus years and a lot of them on Earth or around humans, and none of her reincarnations had actually perfected the art of not putting their foot in it. Yasmin didn't look unhappy, but she was leaving, and that was never good.

"You're adorable" the young woman reached up to fix the doctor's frazzled blonde hair, her hands purposely brushing the soft skin on the face of the Gallifreyan. New body, soft as a baby's butt apparently "I'm going to bed, I'll see you in the morning"

"Maybe it is morning right now" her head tilted towards the big crystal in the middle of the console. Time machine humour was going to get old.

"then I'll see you when I see you" the TARDIS hummed loudly, causing the doctor to scowl.

"Oi. Don't listen to her, daft old thing" Yasmin shook her head, either the doctor forgot she couldn't understand the TARDIS, or it actually was the time machine laughing at her "good night"

"good night Doctor" she leaned over to peck the befuddled time traveler's lips, content that she could apparently do this now and not completely throw the alien off her game, and ran towards the rooms before the doctor could come up with something clever to keep her there any longer.

"well, regeneration or not, I apparently still got it" the Doctor smiled to herself, ignoring the TARDIS and her snarky humor about Yaz having to do all the legwork. Her coat back over her shoulder, and a whole new set of cream custards thanks to the apologetic time machine, she dropped down to the her cubby, supposedly to work, realistically to rack her brain over Yasmin Khan.


End file.
